The 59-year-old frontman dives inside the making of his band’s 16th studio release.
Coyne has always been idiosyncratic.
Why did you choose it for the album title?
Credit: George Salisbury
WAYNE COYNE:In the beginning, we called itAmerican Dead.
“I was like, “Its not a bummer, its a cool title.”
And a split second [later] I agreed with them.
I said, “I honestly didn’t really even think about it.
Change it toAmerican Head?”
Speaking of, thealbum coverphoto is pretty trippy…
Its my brother Tommy.
Its a double exposure, so it’s marvelously artistic by accident.
He knows how to sum up that version of America that’s glorious and dangerous and different.
They’re not European scales and they’re slightly jazz scales.
We love most of our records, but especiallyThe Soft Bulletin.
Its a mark in time; we started again, we became this band with it.
That’s a zone that you’ve got the option to really only be in once.
Even just the song title Mother just Dont be Sad [offAmerican Head] is sad.
But its a true story of a near-death-experience at your fast-food job when you were a teenager, right?
Yes, and it was such a shock.
I mean, the thing gets so seared into your mind.
Thered been a lot of armed robberies in the city at that time.
[Workers] put in the freezer and shot through the head.
Here I am laying on the floor.
Your heart is pounding out of your chest.
Its a bad situation.
I didn’t want her to struggle with that.
The whole thing just flies through your mind.This is how I’m going to die.
I was resigned to that.
And then we didnt die.
That is super vivid and terrifying!
Ive hardly talked to anyone who was in a situation like that, you know?
Being that young, I think I was full of stupid insecurities and things I thought were right.
And this was a shattering of everything that I was about, in the best way possible.
I think it allowed me to not feel so bad about not working with my brothers and my dad.
I loved them, but I wanted to do music.
I always felt like I betrayed them, but after that I didn’t.
I think they understood; they’re like, “You should do your thing.”
[That incident] gave me a little bit of a superpower.
I really knew I was gonna pursue music.
I wanted to have a go at be an artist.
Not in a pompous way.
I was very glad to work at Long John Silvers, and do my music and art.
Not to be famous, not to be a rock star, not be anything other that.
